The Tale of a not so evil Stepmother
by lochrann
Summary: An old friend of Bellemere's is trying to find out what she's been up to since he last heard of her. Warnings only for language, no romance, in case you're worried.
1. Chapter 1

AN: So, I was reading a chapter of Amethyst Turtle's 'Satirical Lulz', minding my own business when suddenly she flung a plot bunny the size of German giant into the air like a bridal bouquet and even though I wasn't really intending to stand in line to catch the thing, as at the moment I have neither interest in marrying or writing a new story, the bugger hit me over the head like a sack of cement. (Really Amethyst Turtle, your aims off, I didn't even have time to reach out a hand and catch the thing. Now I have a headache!) Anyway she, quite rightly, pointed out that there's little to nothing on either Olvia or Bellemere out there and so I decided I had to do something about it. I chose Bellemere, because with her I have a little more to go on and the woman is pure Rock 'n' Roll! Tell me what you think. Oh and tell me if you notice anything about the names I gave the people who show up alongside her (by the way there'll be less of them and more of Bellemere in the next chapters, I just needed an introduction to the story).

''Captain Richards, the new batch of bounty posters. And don't forget your five o'clock appointment with the dentist!'' The middle aged secretary, who was at the very most five years older than he was but still insisted on treating him like a child, laid the stack of posters on his desk and gave him a warm smile before exiting towards the front room of his office to resume her administrative work.

Captain Richards, a strong man with a powerful air about him, turned to the window of his office and stared out at the shoreline below him. He missed sailing out to sea but it came with the job that once you went up in ranks you spent far more time behind a desk than actually capturing any outlaws. He noticed his own reflection in the glass and, not for the first time lifted a quizzical brow, wondering whether the streaks of silver at his temples made him look more respectable or just plain old. With a long sigh he turned back to the stack of papers and started sifting through them. On top there were a lot of small-fries. Bounties of only a couple of thousand but then he got to the larger ones. And the last couple at the back all belonged to the Strawhat pirates. He wasn't really surprised to see that this rookie's bounty had increased substantially after what had apparently transpired at Enies Lobby. Neither did the bounty behind Monkey D. Luffy's surprise him. Though every time he looked at these two together he wondered how a cheerful looking kid like this could become such a notorious pirate and gang up with a demon like Roronoa. He was, however, surprised to see that more members of this gang had received a bounty. He knew about the Demon Child of Ohara and that the occurrences of Enies Lobby had something to do with her, but they had also all suspected that this group had some kind of intelligence and now finally they had a name to put to him and some kind of picture, even if it looked rather ridiculous, but Black Leg Sanji seemed to be one hell of a good spy, no one actually succeeded in taking his picture and living, at least that was the story the recruits told each other.

One of the posters fell out of the stack and fluttered to the desk. He took a look at it and was amused by the coy smile this little vixen had on her lips. Though what a woman as attractive as this one wanted with a bunch of rowdy pirates he would never understand. He took a closer look and felt there was something familiar about this young woman. He lifted it up and studied it further. Sixteen-million Belli for such a young thing, impressive. He read the name. 'Nami'. That rang a bell.

He racked his brain and tried to remember where he had last heard that name, and that flaming orange hair... Both seemed to be pestering some part of his memory. Distant family? No. A colleague's daughter... No, it couldn't be could it? He had a vision of a crocked grin accentuated by a cigarette and an eccentric hairstyle. But if this was really her child... she'd never allow her kid to become a pirate, not over her dead body. This really couldn't be. But then again he hadn't heard from her for, what, more than ten years. He didn't know what had happened to her, though he knew something was fishy about the way that their contact had seeped into non-existence. His friendship with Bellemere had always been a peculiar one. They had gone together through recruitment and had fought bled and celebrated side by side. But they had also bickered like small children all the way through. He always thought that there must have been something in his last letter that had cheesed her off or something, but now, looking at this girl that, against all reason, had to be Bellemere's adoptive child he wondered what might have become of her. _Not over her dead boy..._ It hit him like a brick to the head. He let the Poster slip from his fingers and lifted a shaking hand to his mouth to stifle a gasp. How could he not have known. She was the best friend he had ever had and even though she would have never said it out loud, he knew she felt...had felt the same way.

All of a sudden he was kick started back into action. He got to his feet, sat back down again and started sifting through the drawers of his desk. Where had he left her last letter? He needed to go to that island. He had to find out what had happened. It couldn't just have been some kind of sickness. Although he had always teased her that all that smoking would probably cause an untimely death he couldn't really imagine that anything so simple could have taken her just like that. The woman had been far to stubborn. And then adding her uncanny ability to get into trouble. Something must have happened and he owed it to his friend to find out what it was.

''Berta!'' he called through his door and waited for the secretary to scuttle through into his office.

''Sir?'' she inquired.

Still tearing out draw after draw, messing up all the papers in the desk and not even looking up he went on ''Please, could you look up when there is a ship leaving for East Blue and get me a passage on the soonest to leave.''

''Of course, sir. What shall I put down as to your business in East Blue?''

''Personal affairs.'' he said curtly, waving a hand to indicate that that was all.

''Your cabin, sir!''

The young officer who had lead him on to the ship stood at the open door saluting before taking his leave when Captain Richards went inside and shut the door. Looking about the small room he was quite glad that he had gone up in the ranks of the marines and now deserved a neatly furnished cabin and didn't have to bunk up with a horde of grubby officers like the last time he had been on a ship like this. Sitting down on the small bed and looking out of the porthole a wistful smile played on his lips. He also still clearly remembered the very fist time he had been on a marine ship.

_''Richards! Clapton! Tie that damned sail down and stop clambering about in the rigging like stupid little monkeys!'' the captain of the marine ship that would bring the new recruits to the training base called out. _

_''Oi, Clapton, you looking forward to this kind of treatment for the next couple of years'' Richards whispered to the man lying across the boom and tying up one of the loose ends of the sail. The boat was due to leave the next day when all the young recruits had arrived. Clapton scoffed sarcastically but his retort was lost when there was soddenly a lot of bustling going on on the deck below. The two young men scrambled down the ropes to see what was going on. They found a large group of whistling and shouting men crowding around but couldn't tell what was going on in the center. When they lifted themselves onto the tip of their toes they could only just make out that two recruits seemed to be squabbling, throwing punches at each other and grabbing anything they could get their hands on._

_''What on earth is going on here?!'' the captain bellowed and the group of people immediately dispersed, most of them slinking off to their respective chores, only a few curious enough to see what had happened staying to watch. _

_Once the two on the floor stopped struggling Richards could tell that one of the two guys was actually a young woman. But she was tall and had a strong frame so he wasn't surprised when she got up and pulled the other man to his feet by the scruff of his neck._

_''Explain yourselves. NOW!'' _

_The male one of the two fighters shrunk a little under the scrutinising glare of the captain but the woman stood proud. _

_''This little lecher here,'' she pointed her thumb over her shoulder ''wouldn't stop staring at my tits and I thought he wanted a closer look so I stuck them under his nose and, I don't know, he must have taken it as some kind of provocation because suddenly he started a fight and I thought I had to teach him some manners, show him to be appreciative of what he gets. I'm sure that's the closest he got to a pair of breast since his momma suckled him!''_

_At some point during the woman's rant the captain had let out an exasperated sigh and was now pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. Why were the women that signed up for the marines always this noisy. He had no qualms with women joining the marines, some of his most respected superiors were women, but usually it started off with a single one of them in a group of young male recruits who still needed to learn to respect her abilities and always ended in some sort of fight. _

_''Get back to your work. I'm really looking forward to beating some sense into the lot of you once we start training. Now fuck off!'' he added for good measure and turned on his heal to head for his quarters._

_Once the captain was gone Richards took another good look at the woman and noticed her peculiar hairstyle for the first time. It was a radiant pink and the sides were shaven to only leave a Mohawk strip of hair in the middle that was tied back in a long ponytail. _

_''Stop staring at me!'' she said to Richards startling him out of his thoughts and accentuated her statement by punching the recruit she had been in a fight with in the shoulder._

_When she was wandering off Richards couldn't help staring at her swaggering form despite her warnings. Training was finally promising to get interesting._

Emotional Outburst due to chapter 574 (obviously spoiler warning)

Oh dear god, I just saw spoilers, heartwrenching pictures, that are twisting my guts. I never thought I'd get this emotionally invested in OP. Dammit. Anyone else not quite enjoying where this arc is going?


	2. Chapter 2

**AN:** AAAAHHH! I'm so very sorry! I really never meant for this to take so long to update but somehow time just did a crazy thing and went on, while I wasn't paying attention. Anyway, I hope there are still some people who are interested to see what is going on and I'm really trying to reduce the amount of OC focus but bear in mind that their soul purpose is to give someone the possibility to swoon over Bellemere, 'cause lets face it if I wrote a fic that just kept saying: 'Oi folks, you know what, Bellemere is so totally awsome' that would be even less interesting... Please review even though I don't deserve it after having stalled the update for such a long time.

_The loud banging on the door had all the inhabitants of the room scrambling out of their bunks, still half asleep, trying to struggle into their uniforms and heading for the hall, everyone dreading the consequences it would bring to turn up last._

_Richards was still rubbing his eyes when the training instructor who had so mercilessly pounded on their doors only moments before called them to attention. A ripple went through the row of rookie marines and they all watched nervously as their superior strode along to count them off and check for anyone missing._

_He halted when he got to the one room that housed the only four women of this troop and it took him very little effort to not only see immediately that one of them was missing, for contrary to popular belief among his underlings he was well capable of counting beyond two, and due to regularity of this occurrence he already knew which one of them was missing. _

_He personally had never approved of women joining the marines. He didn't see the sense and had proclaimed so many times. Women, in the instructor's humble opinion where nothing more than a hindrance. The randy recruits would only get distracted and he was sure on a tour out at see they would have to deal with their women's problems and would only hold the rest of them up. _

_Richards didn't like his instructor. He watched with trepidation as the instructor was already getting ready to bellow the offenders name, but before he even got the chance he was almost knocked over by the whirlwind of limbs and cigarette smoke and pink hair that burst out through the closed door of the women's dorm. Needless to say, he was not amused._

''Sir, is there anything else I can bring you?'' The young man who had obviously been instructed by the ship's captain to wait on Richards hand and foot had just brought in a cup of coffee.

''No, thanks. That'll be all.'' Richards replied, feeling a little awkward. He had been in a high position in the marines for some time but he had become quite comfortable at his base and quite frankly his employees hadn't handled him this demurely in years.

Having been reminiscing for quite a while now about his presumably deceased best friend he couldn't help chuckling to himself when he imagined how Bellemere would have reacted to this kind of deference. _A lot of bad language would have been used_ he thought, knowing just to well that she had never taken to hierarchical structures in any form.

''I'm sorry, Sir?'' the young sailor inquired, startling the older man slightly.

''Huh? Oh nothing, thank you'' Richards replied still half in thought and waving the other off.

He heard the door shut quietly when he was left alone to himself and his memories.

_''Why? Why were you not out here when you were supposed to?'' the long suffering training officer was staring Bellemere down only barely being able to keep his composure. Actually, he was trying to stare the woman down, but she was made of harder stuff. To his chagrin, she was grinning in defiance._

_''Sir, I was on the bog.'' she replied, hardly able to contain her mirth. The row of recruits shifted slightly as every single one of them tried very hard not to giggle._

_''What the? You! I! Argh!'' Coherent speech had abandoned the instructor and for a few moments he was only able to let out inarticulate noises before bursting into a loud rant causing spittle to fly out of his mouth and his face turning read with rage._

_''If you find that sort of thing funny, then I think you'd love to do some _bog_ duty! You will be cleaning the lavatories outside the mess for the next week. And we all know the food you lowlife rookies get and we all know some of your delicate palates and sensitive stomachs can't deal with it. So you laugh at that, Missy!'' He turned away from Bellemere but faced her again to add as if whit an afterthought, ''And, oh yeah, you'll be cleaning with your toothbrush.''_

_''Sir! Yes Sir!'' Bellemere answered not having flinched once during her superiors outburst. And if this hadn't been reprehensible enough, in the officer's eyes he also caught her in the corner of his sight, wiping her face down quite demonstratively. He huffed in indignation and dismissed the band of youngsters._

_While the rest of the recruits hurried off to their respective morning duties Richards could see that Bellemere had somehow produced the remnants of a cigarette from her mouth and to his astonishment it was still lit. Leaning against her door she calmly finished smoking it before flicking it in his direction. _

_''What are _you_ looking at?'' she inquired, managing somehow to sound both threatening and humorous._

_''Uh, nothing.'' Richards stuttered and scrambled around the corner heading off to the mess to serve breakfast to the base's captains. When he got out of the fisty woman's sight he slapped his forehead with his hand hard trying to knock some sense into himself. He could vaguely remember a time when he hadn't been a bumbling idiot but actually a suave kind of guy who his peers respected and looked up to. Somehow he had alwas suspected that a woman would be his downfall, just he had never thought, that it would be one so not like anything he had ever seen before. _

At the time, Richards remembered, he had dreaded the thought that he might have fallen in love with that hell cat, but only later would he learn, that what was about to transpire between them, was to be so much more.


End file.
